July 25, 2018

By Justin C. I called The Lion's Daughter's last album. Existence Is Horror, "full-bore blackened sludge." Their newest, Future Cult, is built on the same foundation, but with a new twist: synths! I will admit upfront that, because I am an old

By Justin C.

I called The Lion's Daughter's last album, Existence Is Horror, "full-bore blackened sludge." Their newest, Future Cult, is built on the same foundation, but with a new twist: synths!

I will admit upfront that, because I am an old, I often equate heavy synths automatically with 80s music. Fair is fair, a lot of interesting things have been done since that time in terms of electronic music, but that tends to be my basic starting point. With that admission out of the way, I think The Lion's Daughter is definitely borrowing on a bit of 80s nostalgia here. A lot's been said about the slightly-modern-yet-still-retro soundtrack of the hit show Stranger Things. If you've seen that show, I dare you to listen to "Call the Midnight Animal" and NOT think of Eleven traveling to the upside-down to fight monsters. In fact, I think "Call the Midnight Animal" would make a better soundtrack to that show's boss battles, given the ferocity of the hardcore-blackened-prog-sludge that underlies the mean-sounding arcade game synth riff the song is built on.

For fans of the band's previous work, I think Future Cult could be a love-it-or-hate-it kind of album. I've seen a few grumblings about it being a "mix of synthwave and plodding hardcore." But even if this new layer to the band's sound isn't to everyone's taste, I think comments like that are overly dismissive. The band hasn't just slapped synths on top of the template from their last album. Basic sonic similarities aside, they've let some of these songs breathe a bit. "The Gown" mixes in a heavy dose of eerie atmosphere with a slower-burning doom feel. I'll admit that this doesn't always work--I think a couple of tracks, including "Grease Infant," fail to build up the necessary momentum for what the band's going for here.

A few missteps aside, though, this is still a tight album at 37 minutes, and if you dug the band's last album, you owe it to yourself to give this one a fair spin. If the band had just redone Existence Is Horror with the chords in a different order, we'd all be bored, but they've taken a somewhat-risky step out into potentially more interesting waters. I'll be curious to see if, down the road, we look back on this as a bit of a transitional album on the band's part, moving into a sonic area that they may not have fully under their control yet. But even so, I think this album still stands on its own as another solid entry in their discography.

July 21, 2018

By Calen Henry. Skeletonwitch are my favorite blackened thrash band. No other has quite the same mix of caustic blackened riffs and vocals with a deep-seated sense of melody pervading this sound. Devouring Radiant Light is the band’s first full length in five years

Skeletonwitch are my favorite blackened thrash band. No other has quite the same mix of caustic blackened riffs and vocals with a deep-seated sense of melody pervading this sound. Devouring Radiant Light is the band’s first full length in five years, and their first with Adam Clemens, after the dramatic departure of founding vocalist Chance Garnette. It sounds like a proper rebirth. The album art is the first clue. Skeletonwitch 1.0’s covers were always adorned with a fanged, antlered skull. It was their Eddie or Vic Rattlehead. Devouring Radiant Light eschews that for the first time. Instead, it’s a simple painting of a faceless hooded figure, wreathed in mist. It’s more Gothic, stately, and sinister than before, and perfectly reflects that change in musical style.

It’s not a reinvention, though. New vocalist Adam Clemens’ vocals are on point. He brings the same witch rasp as Garnette did, supported by the same lightning black-thrash attack juxtaposed against the supreme melodicism of the lead guitars and solos, peppered with chromatic and bluesy runs. In short, it’s Skeletonwitch, and it rips. But it does way more than just rip. It’s the most expansive, dynamic, and layered record in the band’s catalog. Most of the tracks have more elaborate compositions than before, with more time given to letting them build and flow. That can make the record seem less accessible than previous outings at first blush, but repeated listens reveal highly detailed songs that are more than mere riff collections. They flow in and out of classic Skeletonwitch with moments of legato lyrical guitar leads, clean vocals, and slow doomy builds. The centerpiece of this is, undeniably, the title track. Starting with a slow clean intro, it weaves through eight minutes of new and old ‘Witch, ending with a beautiful natural guitar harmonic passage.

The only black mark on the album is the production. Like Serpents Unleashed, it was produced by Kurt Ballou. He's a heavy hitter in “loud metal” production, and it's serviceable, but only just. Ballou is known for more straightforward loud bands, and Skeletonwitch have elegantly exited that group on Devouring Radiant Light. The music is more nuanced than Skeletonwitch has ever been before, and it really deserved a producer like Colin Marston, who knows how to bring out both the dirt and the detail of a metal band. The album succeeds in spite of the production, not because of it.

And the album is a complete success, musically. It's simply the best record in Skeletonwitch's catalog. It's everything one could have hoped for from Skeletonwitch 2.0: ripping blackened thrash at heart, but brought to a new level with the kind of experimentation the band never attempted before.

July 20, 2018

By Justin C. Writing about a band like Khôrada is both a joy and, ironically, a truly difficult task. Lots of reviews talk about bands that "defy genre boundaries"--I'm sure I've personally said it before--but Khôrada makes me regret using that phrase

By Justin C.

Artwork by Cedric Wentworth.

Writing about a band like Khôrada is both a joy and, ironically, a truly difficult task. Lots of reviews talk about bands that "defy genre boundaries"--I'm sure I've personally said it before--but Khôrada makes me regret using that phrase to describe any band other than them. It's not that you'll hear some Jute Gyte weirdness or a metal band made up of only tuba players. You'll hear familiar bits of doom, black metal, sludge, and what we olds used to just call "rock and roll," but they're combined and performed so flawlessly that it almost seems like something completely new. Familiar and elusive at the same time.

Most people probably know the headlines on this one: Aaron John Gregory, vocalist and guitarist of Giant Squid, joins three former members of Agalloch: Don Anderson on guitar, Jason Walton on bass, and Aesop Dekker on drums. That will be the marketing pitch, anyway, and it's a smart way to get them a lot of attention. But if fans come looking for a bit of Agalloch Part II, they're going to be much disappointed, because this is not that. What they will find, though, is some truly brilliant, emotionally hefty music. No "new" band should be this good on their first outing, although of course these aren't 18-year-olds making their first record, either.

The debut album, Salt, is unapologetically about environmental collapse and possible extinction-level events for the human race. The opening track, "Edeste," has lyrics like

Nature is convinced
it's time for a sixth extinction event
before man has the chance
to gnaw her to the bone.

Nobody's hiding their lyrical intent here. "Water Rights" is also not coy about being a protest song about the Dakota Access Pipeline and Standing Rock protests:

When word comes down the pipe
from the biggest suit of all
to pillage their water rights
as the snow falls
Disregard their thirst.

Mixed in is a short but devastating portrait of a miscarriage ("Augustus") and a scene of a parent explaining to their child about man-made climate change ("Wave State").

Gregory's vocals are uniquely his own, although I often found myself jotting down comparisons to other singers--maybe a hint of Mark Kozelek at the end of "Edeste"? A little bit of Tom Waits's gruffness in "Water Rights"? But name-checking won't really help me describe his unique voice to you. There are a few snarls, but he mainly sticks to a mid-range clean that veers ever-so-close to over the top without ever actually going there. These lyrics could make for a schmaltz-fest in the wrong hands, but he manages heart-breaking emotional highs and lows in a powerful, straightforward way. The musicians meet him at his level, adding instrumentals that may be a bit cerebral at times, but never emotionally remote. This might be one of the few bands that truly deserves the label "progressive," not in the sense of a weird, technical wankfest or 70s throwback, but music that truly moves us and them forward at the same time.

I don't know what kind of reception this album will get. Some true metalheads might find it not enough, whereas it may still be too heavy for others. The words are topical and current, but on the other hand, this is a bad time (particularly in the U.S.) to express sincere environmental concerns without fact-less hordes shouting you down. But it's a truly special and remarkable album, so I hope it's heard and enjoyed as widely as possible.

July 13, 2018

By Justin C. Theeyyyyy're back! The black metal-adjacent band that seems to ruffle more kvlt feathers than any other has returned with a new full length, Ordinary Corrupt Human Love. The title alone will probably be enough for the trve

By Justin C.

Theeyyyyy're back! The black metal-adjacent band that seems to ruffle more kvlt feathers than any other has returned with a new full length, Ordinary Corrupt Human Love. The title alone will probably be enough for the trve to ball up their fists in rage, although it's not some attempt at emo-cleverness, but rather a line from a Graham Greene novel written nearly 70 years ago.

That said, the band made an interesting choice with the first track, "You Without End." It starts with a simple piano figure that feels like a movie soundtrack focusing on a melancholy return home. The rising guitar line that ramps the song up turns it into a song you might have danced to at your prom...except for George Clarke's trademark growls, that is. It's almost as if the band is daring critics and fans alike to recoil.

It's the first step on a strange journey. The second track, "Honeycomb," brings us back to territory more familiar to previous Deafheaven albums, with the twist added of some seriously Dinosaur Jr.-inspired guitar work amongst the tremolos and blast beats. But hey, if you're going to cite a guitar influence, it's hard to do better than J. Mascis, regardless of genre.

"Canary" and "Glint"--the latter of which might be my favorite track--go along with the theme of making the listener wait, perhaps to the point of being confounded. Both have relatively mild guitar openings pushing past the two-minute mark before the METALZ kick in. But hot damn, when they kick in, we're back to the emotionally cathartic, heart-on-sleeve roars from Sunbather and New Bermuda.

And just to add to the already somewhat-strange mix, "Near" is a short, almost straightforward shoegaze tune with subdued clean vocals, and "Night People" brings Chelsea Wolfe in to co-lead vocals with her own, inimitable darkness. And if I'm not mistaken, that's Clarke singing cleanly along with her.**

As I've always said, I try not to read other press before I write my own review, but in this case, most of my listens came through NPR's stream of the album, and I can't help but pull a few choice bits. I do think the band is being "willfully cheesy" at points--although I don't think NPR or I would use that as an insult. I think their observation that, "If you've mocked Deafheaven in the past, Ordinary Corrupt Human Love does not care to meet you in the middle." is also on point. This album probably won't change your mind if it's already made up. To be honest, if I read what I'd just wrote, I'd be skeptical, even as a fan. Truth be told, though, I listened to this album three times in a row on first sitting. As willfully cheesy, twisting-and-turning it may be, I can't help but feel that Deafheaven is a band that is earnestly making the music they want to make, without an eye toward popularity or grimness or anything else. I have to admit that New Bermuda didn't stick with me the same way Sunbather did, but Ordinary Corrupt Human Love already has me hooked.

July 3, 2018

By Hera Vidal. Black metal will forever be associated with Norway; there is no denying that aspect, given black metal’s origins and lyrical content, especially post-Black Circle shenanigans. Because of this, country-specific black metal is usually overlooked and underrated.

Black metal will forever be associated with Norway; there is no denying that aspect, given black metal’s origins and lyrical content, especially post Black Circle shenanigans. Because of this, country-specific black metal is usually overlooked and underrated. Nowadays, Polish and Icelandic black metal are becoming part of the forefront, while others are making a comeback. The Greek black metal sound has always been around, but it’s making a comeback, and for a sound that gave us Rotting Christ, we tend to forget the other bands. Call them the true black metal denizens if you will.

A quick translation note (anyone can correct me if I am wrong): While the word Πανσέληνος can translate to “full moon” in English, there is something else that is worth mentioning. The word σέληνος can be transliterated to selinos, which gives us the name Selene, the Greek goddess of the moon and the translation to the word “moon”. However, given the prefix Παν-, meaning “all”, “everything”, and, in this context, “involving all members”, can literally translate Πανσέληνος to “involving all members of the moon”. This means that the band didn’t just focus on one primordial goddess lyrically; they focused on a triptych of goddesses and their associated realms: Tiamat, Kali, and the obvious Selene.

From the very beginning, Πανσέληνος has a consistent flow in the music, especially between and within its transitions from song to song. It starts and ends with a classical piece, with heavy piano and backing strings. The first seconds sound like something is ascending towards the heavens, before the piano, strings, and what sounds like a full orchestra come together and create a first movement. After the first track, the album spears forth with sinister synths, heavy distorted guitars, and hellish vocal work. Hearing the clean play of the blast beats and distorted guitars is highly satisfying. It’s fast, filled with moving emotion, and brilliant tonality that remains grandiose, culminating in the fifth track, “The Nine Skulls of Kali.”

Throughout the album you can also hear spoken word mantras, as if the speaker is worshiping the triptych of goddesses that gave birth to this album. What I love most is the lyrical content. Not only is the band worshiping moon goddesses as a whole, but they are worshiping the primordial female nature of life. While these goddesses gave us life and can be seen as generous or even tender in nature, they can also be destructive and cause calamity onto us who don’t understand or insult them in any way. Ah, the essence of woman!

All in all, Πανσέληνος is an album filled with soft yet destructive ferocity, and one that seems content in reveling in its nature. There is a lot of emotion and clean production values that shouldn’t go unnoticed on this album and shouldn’t be forgotten. Given the strong, infernal vibes this album has, their lyrical content is something to look forward to. I expect great things from this band, and I do look forward to their next release!